1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus for filling liquefied natural gas in a tank mounted on a vehicle.
2. Background Art
Due to recent soaring crude oil prices, developments regarding natural gas vehicles, fuel-cell-powered vehicles and the like that run on liquefied natural gas (hereinafter abbreviated as “LNG”), compressed natural gas (CNG), hydrogen and the like as alternatives to petroleum are actively advanced. With this, infrastructures for supplying fuel to the above vehicles etc. have been built, and the present applicant proposed an apparatus for effectively filling hydrogen fuel in an in-vehicle tank in Patent document 1.
Cooling natural gas to −162° C. allows its volume to become six hundredth of volume of that in gaseous state, so that LNG attracts attention in the above alternative fuels as an economic natural resource that can be transported and stored in a large quantity. LNG vehicles that run on the LNG is greatly different from typical vehicles in that the insides of their in-vehicle tanks are constantly maintained −162° C. or lower.
In addition, shale gas production in the United States of America increases supply of natural gas to drive down the price of the natural gas. With the price reduction of natural gas, a trend of cost saving that utilizes LNG less expensive than light gas oil has been expanding mainly in truckload transportation companies and the like.    PATENT DOCUMENT 1: Japanese Patent Publication 2013-148197 gazette